USB – Greening the Earth with USB Type-C (and actual plants)

USB Type-C standardizes power across devices, across continents, across oceans.

USB Type-C will be the one and only standard for charging phones, tablets, cameras, wearables. It will be same in cars, homes, offices, and factories.

One connector, one cable.

For phones alone, switching to USB chargers will save on billions of chargers not going into landfills.

The EU chose USB as the standard in 2011.

But the microA/microB wasn’t universal enough. It was cheap but it was different on both ends. It wasn’t particularily durable. And it wasn’t really small enough for even the small Motorola flip phones that were so popular for awhile

Replacing the Micro A and Micro B connectors, Type C fulfills the requirement envisioned by the EU 5 years ago.

With Type-C it’s simple. The symmetry of the connector (flappable) and the cable (either end) makes it easy to use. It’s durability makes the connector usable for many, many more cycles reliably. The extra wires/pins/contacts future proof it for faster speeds, more lanes for more protocols.

So, one connector, future proofed, easy to use. Reusable (like good USB IP). Billions in chargers not going into landfills.

No Power Delivery needed

With power delivery you can even do more power, but you don’t need more power which was the purpose of my previous two entries

Super Green USB – Bioo Lite

Another way USB is making the world green, is an actual PLANT generating the 5W you can use to charge your phone.
The plant somehow absorbs light and nutrients, creates a charge that can be used to charge a mobile phone a 1A, 5V. It’s almost too good to be true, since an actual Solar cell probably costs more than the bill of materials for this plant. Certainly cheaper than the Campfire activated USB charger for your phone.

Eric started working on USB in 1995, starting with the world’s first BIOS that supported USB Keyboards and Mice while at Award Software. After a departure into embedded systems software for real-time operating systems, he returned to USB IP cores and software at inSilicon, one of the leading suppliers of USB IP. In 2002, inSilicon was acquired by Synopsys and he’s been here since. He also served as Chairman of the USB On-The-Go Working Group for the USB Implementers Forum from 2004-2006.

Eric received an M.B.A. from Santa Clara University and an M.S. in Engineering from University of California Irvine, and a B.S. in Engineering from the University of Minnesota. and is a licensed Professional Engineer in Civil Engineering in the State of California

Michael (Mick) Posner joined Synopsys in 1994 and is currently Director of Product Marketing for Synopsys' DesignWare USB Solutions. Previously, he was the Director of Product Marketing for Physical (FPGA-based) Prototyping and has held various product marketing, technical marketing manager and application consultant positions at Synopsys. He holds a Bachelor Degree in Electronic and Computer Engineering from the University of Brighton, England.